Q. Whilst astrologers have often looked at my chart and said “look at all your gifts and potential, and hardly any challenging aspects-what’s your problem?”, my lack of satisfaction with that assessment has lead me to explore my chart myself and I believe that the Yod formed by just about my whole chart is the crux of my challenges but at 45 I am still challenged to understand what it is I am supposed to be doing with it, especially linking that complex configuration in with my North Node in Aries in the 8th House.

A. I’m not so sure about that. Sure, the yods* are tricky, annoying but unless causing serious physical illness, hardly life threatening.

Part of the problem is that, with all due respect, the astrologers you have consulted haven’t gone deep enough, karmically or psychologically, with even the basic chart. Someone with an Eight House emphasis with multiple planets in Virgo conjunct Pluto is going to have major issues with fear and control, especially if your South Node in Libra is also in this house.

For all the inherent power here, there will also be some past-life experiences around the use and misuse of power and some nasty unresolved deaths to boot. This will manifest as a desperation to keep everything under control, having great difficulty letting go to experiences that could actually change your life. The funny thing is that having an 8th House emphasis will magnetize such experiences to you but as always it’s not about the astrological aspects but what you do or don’t do with the energy of them.

Fortunately having transiting Uranus crossing your North Node in Aries calls you to the opposite, to drop the Virgoan control with its excessive rationalism and tendency to over-analyse and to simply leap, take some inspired risks, to trust the visceral intelligence of your fire. And if you do hit the ancient terror and can’t, get some help.

One of the problems is that your Saturn in Aries has few positive aspects and is relatively isolated compared with the rest of the chart. This makes it hard to call on his powers of healthy realism and creative manifestation. We either go too Saturnian to compensate and in so doing exaggerate all the dutiful, hard working Virgo energy, or not enough, letting ourselves down at crucial moments.

One of the other downsides of your Saturn position is conditioning that makes you fearful of stepping out into new territory, of claiming your right to create your own inspired individualistic path. This is something he shares with your Chiron in Aries but again your North Node calls you. Fortunately your progressed Chiron is conjunct progressed Hygeia, two great healers merging to create a brilliant healing vortex. If you can do some really deep healing work, this will help crack both the initial Saturn and Chiron limitations and, allow you to fulfil more of your nodal destiny.

An even more significant area to explore in this respect is your dark goddesses, as the Black Moon squares your Virgo Sun and the stellium you have in later Virgo is opposed by Medusa in Pisces. Having the former in your 4th House of home and family is like having a rabid and enraged form of Kali holding court in your family system, sucking much of the joy, optimism and empowerment out of your system.

This has to do with all the disowned power, sexual potency and individualism of many of your ancestors creating a black hole in the family psyche. The solar power of your Sun is both severely compromised and sabotaged. In Gemini, this can be particularly slippery and toxically mind-f…ing.

Similarly with Medusa in Pisces, we can be pretty sure that in her enraged version, she has terrorised the Virgo in you with dark murky threats from the unconscious, especially if you were to lose or let go of your control, let alone attempt to own your true power.

I see these last two aspects to be the most crucial influences to your happiness, success and well-being. As insurmountable as they can appear, the secret with each of them is that they are also the antidote to the very same obstacles. If you can embark on a committed program of emotional release work, including anger and toxic rage work; psychospiritual purification processes; reclaiming your much deeper emotional range and reclaiming the goddess(es) within, you can turn both of these around to become your greatest allies, as the sacred tantric warriors that they are. One of the paradoxes is that their true power is not different to the deepest goddess levels within Virgo, your 8th House and your Scorpio Moon.

Again, having Hygeia so active and combining with Chiron is such grace, as she is fully capable of handling the deepest toxicity in anyone. It was she who turned the toxic blood of Medusa into a remedy that could bring the dead back to life. Also transiting Chiron will aspect both Medusa and your Venus/Mercury/Pluto conjunction in the next two years, helping to unravel and release each end of this powerful opposition.

The support is there. Go with it!

* Yods are a constellation where two planets, asteroids etc sextile each other but with each inconjunct a third body in an incongruent sign e.g. Virgo sextile Scorpio inconjunct Aries)